Pages

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

[KILLER
JOE screens Friday November 2nd at 9:40 pm and Saturday November 3rd at 9:30 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Bob
Ignizio

The
Texas family we meet in KILLER JOE
can best be described as a collection of white trash
stereotypes. Chris (Emille Hirsch) is a dumb-as-a-bag-of-hammers drug
dealer in trouble with his supplier, due to his no-good mother
stealing his stash. Chris' sister Dottie (Juno Temple) is just as dumb and also a little bit “off”, probably due to brain damage
suffered when mom tried to kill her as a baby. She's a virgin, but
walks around half naked like she's starring in some 70's
hicksploitation movie, and of course her brother has the hots for
her. Dad Ansel (Thomas Hayden Church) appears even dumber than his
kids, if that's possible. The smartest thing he ever did was to leave
the mother of his children, but his current girlfriend Sharla (Gina
Gershon) is no prize, either.

To save himself
from retaliation by his dealer, Chris decides to kill his mom and
collect on her life insurance policy, with Ansel as his not
particularly effective accomplice. Neither man is up to doing the
deed himself, though, so they enlist the services of Joe (Matthew
McConaughey), a Texas police officer who moonlights as a hitman. Joe
normally only takes a job with the cash of front, but after meeting
Dottie he agrees to take her as collateral until the insurance money
comes in.

The
film is based on the first play by screenwriter Tracy Letts, whose
previous collaboration with director William Friedkin resulted in the
psychological thriller BUG,
a personal favorite of this reviewer. KILLER JOE
is a very different animal altogether.Lettsappears to be going for pitch
black comedy here, serving up plenty of deadpan twisted laughs on top
of a gritty crime plot. That almost makes KILLER JOE
sound like one of Joe R. Lansdale's Texas noirs, but while Lansdale
doesn't shy away from showing the ugly side of the Lone Star State,
he also shows its decency. Plus his jokes are a lot funnier.

Friedkin and his
cast all do excellent work, but the film is so relentlessly
unpleasant and the characters so uniformly unlikeable that it's hard
to care. It's just a long, pointless NC-17 redneck joke, and that's
even before it gets to the sure to be notorious scene involving
McConaughey, Gershon, and some fried chicken. One hates to throw
labels around too casually, but if this scene isn't misogynistic,
what is? When the film at last reaches its final, obvious
punch-line, one has to wonder what's the point of it all beyond having a few yucks at the expense of easy targets. 2 1/2 out
of 4 stars.